GuitarX3

I made a thick and dense distorted guitar sound with Amp, then I colored it with EQ to focus on the mid range with a low cut and a mid boost. I also cut 2 decibels on the top end.

GuitarX3 before

GuitarX3 after

Amp: amp type heavy, volume 3.97, dry wet 34%, others are default

EQ Three: low -11 dB, mid +2 dB, high -2 dB

Creative Use

This means using distortion creatively within a specific sound or musical style.

For example, a rock band uses a different distortion than a metal band. This is also different from an electronic musician spicing up the drum group with a bit of saturation.

You can do anything you want in this method, but make sure you stay in the musical genre.

Corrective Use

This method is in harmony with enhancing. For example I can add top end to a dull piano track.

Using Equalizers Together With Distortion

It is an old trick to use EQ with distortion. There are three ways to do that:

1. Pre EQ

Put an EQ before the distortion to control what goes in.

2. Post EQ

Put an EQ after the distortion to control the output sound.

3. Pre and Post EQ

I can have more control over the sound with pre and post EQ

Use both Pre and Post EQ to shape the input and output sound. You will shape the sound with more control in this version compared to the previous ones.

Parallel Distortion

Basically, parallel processing for distortion is a simple dry-wet knob. With dry-wet I can set the ratio of the clean and effected signals.

It is a nice trick to use heavy processing then blending it in with a very little ratio, like 10% or 20%. This is like creating a balance of them. You also do the opposite: using a high dry wet with a subtle distortion.

Psychoacoustics

Be careful when doing distortion.! Our ears can get very tired if listening to a distorted sound in isolation, or one that is not balanced with other instruments.

Two important aspects are:

loudness level can cause hearing loss and fatigue

distortion character can cause fatigue

Extreme distortion can pierce through the mental sensation of it. Ears get hurt by spiky and metallic sounds. It is a good tip to set distortion settings and then dial back a bit after some break.

Effect Rack for Distortion

A quick way to simplify Saturator’s complexity is to create an effect rack from it.

I created a simple effect rack, simplifying Saturator’s controls

Creating a rack in six steps:

Load an empty Audio Effect Rack from the Audio Effects section

Enable Macros and Chains List

Add Saturator to the chain

Seconday-click on Curve Type, Map to Macro 1

Seconday-click on Drive, Map to Macro 2

Seconday-click on Drive Wet, Map to Macro 3

You can do this with any effect and there are more settings for detailed parameter handling. For more settings click on the Map button in the title of the rack.

Summary

In this tutorial I demonstrated more distortion plugins and gave you some tips on using distortion effectively.

Finally, I gave an example on creating a distortion rack. This is the second and last part of this tutorial series.